And Joyce Robins, from Patient Concern, said: “It feels a bit like a bribe.

“Telling GPs you can be better off financially by prescribing less to patients doesn’t seem like a good idea.

“You would like to think patient care was their main priority, not cost-savings, particularly a very vulnerable group like those in care homes.”

But local health officials claim the cost-cutting scheme is being offered to GP practices “as encouragement and reward to improve the quality, safety and cost effectiveness of prescribing”.

Any extra cash will go to surgeries and not individual medics. Local GP leaders advised medics to reject the scheme, warning it would simply add to their workload.

A spokesperson for Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group said: “The aim of the Prescribing Incentive Scheme is to review medicines and prescribing in care homes and with the frail elderly in order to optimise medication.”

Another local health board stopped all non-urgent operations in February under an “unprecedented” cost-saving scheme.

Health chiefs in West Kent denied patients procedures such as hip and knee replacements for at least two months.